Posted November 21, 2017 by Harriet Cramer

New Calabrio study reveals complicated customer issues are the number one challenge facing contact centre employees, and brands are failing to provide needed support

While customer experience continues to be the top priority for businesses, a new report announced today, “The Health of the Contact Centre: Agent Well-Being in a Customer-Centric Era,” reveals that 56 percent of contact centre employees cite complex customer problems as their top challenge. A full 60 percent admit their company has left them ill-equipped to handle these problems, leaving agents stressed and unengaged.

Commissioned by Calabrio, a leading provider of customer engagement and analytics software, the study surveyed more than 1,000 contact centre employees in the UK and US to uncover the true health of today’s contact centres, including agent confidence in the ability to be successful in their jobs, the challenges they face and how technology will dictate the future of the contact centre.

Empowering contact centre employees is more critical than ever as 32 percent of respondents believe that customer problems will only become increasingly difficult over the next two years, and 45 percent worry customers will expect even more from companies.

The well-being of contact centre employees continues to decline and, if not addressed, it can ultimately affect their ability to deliver the desired customer experience. A quarter (25 percent) of respondents say they feel stressed multiple times a week, and more than half (52 percent) agree that their company isn’t doing enough to prevent teams from feeling burned out.

Kris McKenzie, EMEA general manager at Calabrio said, “Brands are battling it out to deliver the right customer experience to get ahead of the competition and drive market share. What is clear, however, is if they do not rethink the contact centre strategy, they’re putting the entire customer experience at risk. As a cornerstone of the customer experience, brands need to implement the right technology in their contact centre but more importantly they need to focus on the people. In doing so, contact centre staff become empowered to quickly make informed decisions and deliver on the experience that customers have come to expect.”

Commissioned through VI.GA consulting. Study of 1,027 contact centre agents in the UK and US, carried out in September 2017.